# Fictional references that became true **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 21, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656 "2009-10-21T19:33:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/1 "2009-10-21T19:33:24Z")
Sometimes somebody comes up with a fake name, or idea for a book, and briefly describes it in a work of fiction. Then later somebody else comes along and decides to make it real. How often does that happen? For starters: **Toad the Wet Sprocket** is referred to by a radio DJ on a Monty Python album (and it was an intentionally terrible band name). ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/2 "2009-10-21T19:35:28Z")
[Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades.](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/3 "2009-10-21T19:49:04Z")
Venus on a Half Shell, referred to by Vonnegut and written by Farmer. Farmer put some other fiction titles in there which he later wrote. A really good example is the Nov. 1949 issue of Astounding. In November 1948 a letter appeared reviewing the Nov. 1949 issue, with a bunch of great stories by top writers. Campbell went out and got these writers to write the stories, and published them in the Nov. 1949 issue, with a few exceptions. A story by Don A. Stuart (Campbell) did not appear, and a part of one of the Foundation serials by Asimov not forecast ran. Gulf by Heinlein was one of the stories in this issue. [Here](http://www.andrew-may.com/asf/prophecy.htm) is a little article about it. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/4 "2009-10-21T19:55:52Z")
Jean Sheperd came up with a fictional book entitled _I, Libertine_ and demanded his listeners ask for it at their local bookstore to see what kind of result they would get. Eventually, _I, Libertine_ was actually published as a result. A famous British television commerical featured an old man using the Yellow Pages searching for a book about fly fishing by J.R. Hartley, the punchline revealing that the man himself is the author. Eventually, an actual book about fly fishing was published under the name J.R. Hartley. When the minor-league Calgary Cannons moved to Albuquerque, the fans voted on what their new name should be. The winner was Albuquerque Isotopes, which partially references the fact that the atomic bomb was first tested in New Mexico, but is mainly a reference to the fictional minor-league baseball team from _The Simpsons_, which once threatened to move to Albuquerque due to poor attendance. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/5 "2009-10-21T20:00:17Z")
Conan Doyle made an offhand comment in one of his Holmes stories about “…the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.” He never did write the story, nor do I imagine he ever intended to. But since then, there have been many stories published based on that one throw-away reference. > **[Giant rat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_rat#Sherlock_Holmes_and_the_Giant_Rat_of_Sumatra)** > > The name giant rat has been applied to various species of large rats (or animals that appear similar to large rats) and may refer to: ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/6 "2009-10-21T20:04:09Z")
Oh, and of course, “O Brother Where Art Thou,” which was the title of a fictional movie in Preston Sturges’s _Sullivan’s Travels_ long before it was a real Coen Brothers movie. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/7 "2009-10-21T20:43:50Z")
I would say the most obvious one would be California, although there’s some dispute about exactly where the name came from. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin\_of\_the\_name\_California](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_name_California) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/8 "2009-10-21T20:54:02Z")
The term [thagomizer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer) to refer to the spiked portion of the tail of a stegosaur; it came from a Far Side cartoon and is now used by real specialists. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/9 "2009-10-21T20:56:07Z")
H.G. Wells wrote about the _atomic bomb_ in **The World Set Free**. Leo Szilard is supposed to have realized the political importance of the atomic bomb from Wells’ novel. I notice that, of all the names they could have used for the first fission bomb, thery DId use “atomic bomb” (although, to be fair, I think Wells codged the name from Frederick Soddy’s work) You could make the same point about a lot of science fiction. Kurd Lasswitz was a contemporary of Wells’, an important German science fiction writer, almost none of whose work has been translated into English. But all the German Rocket Engineers in nthe early part of the 20th century were big fans of him, including werner von Braun, Hermannn Oberth, and Willy Ley, and they named parts of their rockets after corresponding parts of the space ships in Lasswitz’ _Zwei Planete_. A parallel case might be Heinlein’s “waldoes”, named after the titular character in “Waldo” – they were mechanical arms used for manipulating dangerous or very small items. but i have to admit that, after someone challenged the issue here on the Board, I’ve never seen the term used in R&D or in industry, although at least three science fiction authors have used the term. a social example is Larry Niven’s “Flash Crowds” . he envisioned it as a result of cheap teleportation, but the phenomenon has been realized due to the availability of cheap and highly portable communication. > **[Flash Crowd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Crowd)** > > "Flash Crowd" is a 1973 English-language novella by science fiction author Larry Niven, one of a series about the social consequence of inventing an instant, practically free displacement booth. > One consequence not foreseen by the builders of the system was that with the almost immediate reporting of newsworthy events, tens of thousands of people worldwide – along with criminals – would teleport to the scene of anything interesting, thus creating disorder and confusion. The plot centers around a... ---
**Author:** ![Jormungandr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/10 "2009-10-21T21:06:45Z")
The one that comes to mind, as I own a copy of the book, is “Futility or the Wreck of the Titan,” which is similar to the sinking of the Titanic. > **[The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility,_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan)** > > Futility is a novella written by Morgan Robertson, first published in 1898. It was revised as The Wreck of the Titan in 1912. It features a fictional British ocean liner named Titan that sinks in the North Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg. The Titan and its sinking are famous for similarities to the passenger ship RMS Titanic and its sinking 14 years later. After the sinking of the Titanic the novel was reissued with some changes, particularly to the ship's displacement. > The first half o... ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/11 "2009-10-21T21:15:24Z")
Oh yeah, and then there’s the Masked Marauders. Back in 1969, a joke review appeared in _Rolling Stone_, reviewing a purported tape of a secret super session involving Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. So many people took the review seriously that they decided to actually record the album (without any of the actual superstars, of course). I have a copy. The imitations aren’t all that good, but it’s an interesting document. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Masked\_Marauders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masked_Marauders) ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/12 "2009-10-21T21:25:55Z")
In _A Clockwork Orange_, there was mention of a band called [The Heaven Seventeen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_17). ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/13 "2009-10-21T21:26:17Z")
[Heaven 17](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_17) ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/14 "2009-10-21T21:26:18Z")
I was somewhat involved in the creation of TWAIN, the standard protocol and API for scanners. It got passed around among those working on it to call it TWAIN b/c acronyms were getting annoying to us and we thought it sounded cool as well as descriptive (getting scanners and computers to connect was a hassle back then - ie. “never the twain shall meet”). We used it internally, and eventually it became what everyone called it. It stands for “Technology Without An Interesting Name.” ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/15 "2009-10-21T21:56:21Z")
Silly one, but the book referenced in \*\*Castle \*\*is actually for sale. > **[Amazon.com: Heat Wave (Nikki Heat): 9781401323820: Castle, Richard: Books](https://www.amazon.com/Heat-Wave-Nikki-Richard-Castle/dp/1401323820)** > > Amazon.com: Heat Wave (Nikki Heat): 9781401323820: Castle, Richard: Books ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/16 "2009-10-21T23:45:30Z")
Dean Koontz references a fictional “Book of Counted Sorrows” in his novels often. Demand for a real one was so great that he’s supposedly working on it. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/17 "2009-10-21T23:51:22Z")
The TV series _Lost_ featured among its many plot points and goings-on a manuscript of a book called _Bad Twin_, which was actually written and published as a tie-in to the series. Somewhat similarly, J.K. Rowling wrote three fictional books she herself created in the Harry Potter universe- _Quidditch Through The Ages_ and _Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them_ were written for charity, and _Tales of Beedle the Bard_ was made as a gift for her closest partners on the Harry Potter project as a thank-you (and later released to the public). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/18 "2009-10-21T23:54:47Z")
Not exact, but my favorite pseudoexample is President Schwarzenegger from Demolition Man. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/19 "2009-10-22T00:30:07Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > In _A Clockwork Orange_, there was mention of a band called [The Heaven Seventeen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_17). > [@stuthehistoryguy](#): > > [Heaven 17](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_17) Uncanny. A minute apart? ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656/20 "2009-10-22T00:32:19Z")
SF author Gene Wolfe was writing a book **Citadel of the Autarch** , part of the **Book of the New Sun** series. His agent misheard the title as \*\*Castle of the Otter \*\*and publicised it as such, so Wolfe felt obliged to write a story by that name in order to keep him (appearing to be) honest. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-references-that-became-true/514656.md?page=2)